Let’s be lovers again on the Belvedere
Hand in hand we would climb the stairs
Then fly to the past in our memories’ wings
To that timeless space where duelled Hastings!
Let’s be lovers again in that time spectral
On Victoria’s lawn her memorial
In the autumn’s white blue horizon
Under the bronzed face of Curzon!
Let’s be lovers again in our revived heart
In wind kissed skin on the Prinsep Ghat
See the sun go down on the west bank low
Coloring our eyes in the river’s glow!
Let’s be lovers again in the garden of Kyd
Where under the banyan love poems we read
Take a boat sail to the south upstream
Where the Hugli flows in the Bay’s dream!
Why can’t we be lovers like the olden time
Where landed Charnock in the humid clime
That grew to a city with three villages to start
And etched forever in two lovers’ hearts!
Belvedere House - Alipore, Calcutta, former palace for the Viceroy of India and the Governor General of Bengal, now houses the National Library.
Warren Hastings - first Governor General of Bengal (1772-85), he had wounded Sir Phillip Francis in a duel in the lawn of Belvedere.
Victoria Memorial - built by Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India to the memory of Queen Victoria (1819-1901), built between 1906-1921.
Prinsep Ghat - built on the riverbank of Hugli in memory of James Prinsep, English scholar, orientalist and antiquary.
Ghat - riverbank
Kyd - Colonel Robert Kyd (1746-93), a British army officer in India who founded the Botanical Garden, Calcutta in 1787. The garden has one of the oldest banyan trees in the world.
Hugli - Hugli river, tributary of the Ganges
Bay - Bay of Bengal
Charnock - Job Charnock (1630-92), administrator of the English East India Company, regarded as the founder of the city of Calcutta starting with three villages Sutanuti, Gobindapur and Kalikata.
p.s. I was born, grew up and loved in Calcutta now known as Kolkata, the City of Joy.